May 28, 2019 2:48AM PT Leading Indian director-presenter-producer Karan Johar will host a dating reality show that will bow on Netflix. BBC Studios India will produce. Titled “What’s The Love? With Karan Johar,” the show will have Johar expressing his thoughts on love and relationships. But with a twist. A flamboyant talk show host, Johar’s
Tech
Sports Illustrated over the decades has chronicled stellar match-ups, blow-outs, squeakers, sudden deaths and photo finishes. Now it’s getting ready to take on a whole new kind of game. Publisher Meredith Corp. has sold for $110 million the intellectual property around the venerable sports-news outlet to Authentic Brands Group, the brand-development company that manages Juicy
Netflix is stepping up production in the Middle East with its third and most ambitious Arabic original, titled “Paranormal,” with young Egyptian director Amr Salama (“Sheikh Jackson”) on board as director and showrunner. “Paranormal,” which is based on bestselling Arabic horror books by late Egyptian author Ahmed Khaled Tawfik, is being jointly produced by Salama
In an unusual move, Entertainment One plans to share TV pilot scripts for two Wattpad stories it’s adapting as series with the most passionate fans of the original tales — bringing them into the development process. Under its partnership with Wattpad, the Toronto-based production and media company is developing shows based on dystopian drama “The
May 24, 2019 10:05AM PT Facebook faced growing criticism this week over its decision not to remove a video that was doctored to suggest that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was intoxicated during a recent public event. The video, which has been viewed more than 2.5 million times, had been slowed down notably, giving the impression
To promote next month’s premiere of “Black Mirror” season 5, Netflix is launching a spinoff of three shorts — “Little Black Mirror,” with a cast that includes an ensemble of Latinx social-media stars. The three “mini-stories,” aimed at Spanish-speaking audiences, will key off the tech-dystopian universe of Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones’ anthology series. “Little
May 24, 2019 6:01AM PT Snap wants to up Snapchat’s music game. The company has been in negotiations with music companies including the big three — Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group — to license song catalogs for the Snapchat app, according to two industry sources familiar with the talks, confirming
May 23, 2019 3:05PM PT T-Mobile is getting ready to raise prices for subscribers who have taken advantage of its “Netflix On Us” promotion: The mobile carrier will begin charging existing customers who have participated in the promotion an additional $2 per month to account for Netflix’s recent price increase. Consumers will see their bill
May 23, 2019 12:36PM PT Snap continues to fill out the ranks of its revamped leadership team: The Snapchat parent tapped Oona King, most recently Google’s director of diversity strategy and a former member of British Parliament with the Labour Party, as its first VP of diversity and inclusion. King, who starts at Snap on
Chrissy Teigen is going full-on “Judge Judy” in a reality show ordered by Quibi, the mobile-video subscription start-up venture founded by Jeffrey Katzenberg. In each episode of “Chrissy’s Court,” the model-influencer will reign as the “judge” over one small-claims case. Like the reality TV shows it’s patterned after, the plaintiffs, defendants, and disputes are real
Instagram is still searching to find the right recipe for IGTV, the long-form video service it debuted nearly a year ago. In the hopes of encouraging usage of IGTV, Instagram is breaking the original design that allowed only vertical video– to now support horizontally oriented videos as well. It’s a change that bows to the
Facebook saw a huge jump of bots trying to create fake accounts during the first quarter, with the company revealing Thursday that it took down 2.19 billion such accounts over the first three months of this year. “We’ve seen a steep increase in the creation of abusive, fake accounts on Facebook in the last six
May 23, 2019 8:54AM PT The Lonely Island comedy troupe has dropped a half-hour Netflix special featuring a musical tribute to baseball greats Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire. “The Lonely Island Presents: The Unauthorized Bash Brothers Experience” features Andy Samberg and Akiva Schaffer as the former Oakland Athletics teammates who became known as “the Bash
Portland-based Panic has a shiny new game console, called Playdate, and a slew of new games to go with it, the developer announced Wednesday via Twitter. Playdate is a bright yellow, handheld console with a black and white screen and a crank— no not for power, this little crank has functionality in some games for
Noah Galvin and Ari’el Stachel play two rival royal heirs who end up falling in love in “The Two Princes,” a scripted podcast series from Gimlet Media. The seven-episode series is a “modern retelling of a classic fairy tale” about the joys and woes of teenage romance, according to Gimlet. All episodes of “The Two
Facebook’s new Oculus Quest headset is a great gaming device that simplifies virtual reality (VR), doing away with the need for an expensive PC and external tracking hardware. But with its integrated tracking, the Quest can also teach us a thing or two about the future of virtual and augmented reality. Those two areas of
Snapchat quickly removed a handful of x-rated augmented reality lenses Tuesday, dealing a blow to efforts by adult entertainment company Naughty America to promote its subscriptions to the service’s users. However, the porn studio may not be quite done with Snapchat just yet, as it is still distributing the source files that allow Snapchat users
Within the next three months, YouTube will change the way it publicly displays channel subscriber counts: It will provide only rounded figures instead of actual follower numbers. For example, under the change, T-Series — the Indian music-video channel that recently surpassed PewDiePie to become the most-subscribed independent channel on the platform — would be listed
Q&A, the music and tech company founded by former Lady Gaga manager and Spotify exec Troy Carter, today announced the appointments of Phillip Eubanks as Chief Operating Officer (pictured above, right) and Marc Hemeon as Head of Design (left). The pair join Carter, J. Erving (Human Re Sources, Atom Factory), Suzy Ryoo (Atom Factory, OMD)
May 22, 2019 12:21AM PT Simran Sethi, the Los Angeles-based director of Netflix international originals, responsible for India content, has resigned and will quit after a transition period. Netflix did not comment. Sources familiar with the matter told Variety that Netflix prefers an executive based in India to oversee local original content that has now
May 21, 2019 10:03PM PT In this week’s edition of the Variety Movie Commercial Tracker, powered by TV ad measurement and attribution company iSpot.tv, Universal Pictures claims the top spot in spending with “The Secret Life of Pets 2.” Ads placed for the animated film had an estimated media value of $11.52 million through Sunday
Vice Media has recruited Cory Haik, former publisher of digital news start-up Mic, as chief digital officer to lead the youth-culture company’s global internet businesses. Haik will be based at Vice’s Brooklyn headquarters and report to CEO Nancy Dubuc. She most recently worked at Mic, which last fall laid off virtually its entire staff before
Adult entertainment company Naughty America wants to use augmented reality to get the word out about its paid services. The company has begun to make Snapchat lenses featuring some of its models, and is teaching its audience to do the same. Naughty America shared three such lenses on its website (link not safe for work)
May 21, 2019 9:25AM PT Samsung still isn’t selling its Galaxy Home smart speaker, but the company may be getting ready to introduce a second model soon: An FCC filing for an “AI speaker” suggests that the new model, like the original Galaxy Home, will be dual-branded, featuring both Samsung’s own brand name as well
A series based on Jim Henson’s fantasy world of “The Dark Crystal” is coming to Netflix this summer. The streamer announced that all 10 episodes of “The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance,” produced by the Jim Henson Co., will launch Friday, August 30 — and Netflix released several first-look photos from the series (see below).
May 21, 2019 7:50AM PT ByteDance, the Beijing-based owner of the TikTok video app, is developing a paid streaming music service aimed at the same emerging markets that Spotify and Apple are seeking to explore, according to a report in Bloomberg. The app could be introduced as early as autumn, according to the report, which
VidCon brings together thousands of fervent fans at its annual conventions, who flock to the events to see their favorite YouTubers and other digital celebs in the flesh. Now the Viacom-owned division is trying to keep the excitement burning during the VidCon off-season, too. This week VidCon is launching its first foray into original content
A rush of TV watchers to streaming video has prompted Coca-Cola to test an interesting pour. Coca-Cola will bring New Coke back to market for a brief time, all part of a partnership with Netflix, which has featured Coke in its cult-favorite series “Stranger Things.” The third season of the series, set in 1985, will
Veteran TV producer Lauren Dolgen has departed as head of BuzzFeed Studios after one year in the job. BuzzFeed had hired Dolgen, a longtime MTV producer who worked on shows including “Teen Mom” and “16 and Pregnant,” as head of BuzzFeed Studios to oversee the company’s slate of original content. Based in L.A., she had
Snap CEO and co-founder Evan Spiegel has turned in house to fill the company’s CFO and head of human resources positions, completing an overhaul of the Snapchat parent’s executive ranks after a series of high-level departures. The company announced the appointment of Derek Andersen, currently Snap’s VP of finance, as chief financial officer. Andersen will